Los Angeles based hip hop artist Icon is doing the work and putting in the time on his rap game by playing the coveted Roxy in West Hollywood this coming Tuesday, July 13th. Icon will be in good company at this show, Oakland, California's Zion I and L.A. mainstays Strong Arm Steady are the headliners. Be sure not to miss this one.
Check out Icon's short film for the track Boss In The Buliding. Up and coming filmmaker David Odio shot the video, armed with his trusty Canon 5D Mark II.
Murs is back. After a stint with Warner Bros. Records that resulted in the release of 2008's Murs for President, the Los Angeles rapper has returned to the indie circuit.
Later this month, he'll be dropping the highly anticipated collabo album with producer 9th Wonder called ForNever, their fourth pairing. But, the project is just one of 10 albums Murs plans to drop throughout the remainder of 2010.
During an invite-only listening party for the forthcoming album on Friday (March 5) in Los Angeles, Murs told us about his plans to release a new album during the last week of each month through December, each one consisting of 10 new songs.
With an indie mentality, Murs says a slew of unreleased material was built up during his tenure with Warner Bros. So, now that he's free of his contract with the major label, it's all going to see the light of day ... during the 2010 calendar year.
"Warner Bros. kind of ... stifled me creatively 'cause I was used to having product flow every year -- touring, album, tour, album, tour, two tours and album," Murs explained BallerStatus.com. "I'd do two 60-city tours, something in the summer, then new album. I was a workaholic. They kinda shut me up. I have all this music coming outta nowhere, so I'm ready, and I think this is an ultimate way to kick it off...
"During that time, I created so much music that I have a surplus," the rapper added, "so, I'm trying to do 10 records in 10 months this year. It's 2010, we're gonna have 10 records with 10 songs."
Despite leaving the Warner, Murs say he and the label parted on good terms and commended the people he worked with. In the end, he said they just had a "difference of opinion."
The first of the music to come out of the vaults will be ForNever, which features the production of 9th Wonder, and guest appearances include Sick Jacken, Uncle Chucc, Suga Free, Kurupt, and Verbz.
The first single is the Sick Jacken and Uncle Chucc assisted "The Problem Is." A video was shot with director Estevan Oriol last month, and is scheduled to surface in the coming weeks.
ForNever drops March 30th.
Additionally, during our chat, Murs revealed that one of the next projects -- of the 10 dropping this year -- will be a collaborative effort with rising west coast producer Terrance Martin.
Further details about other upcoming albums were unknown at press time though.
Writing about a listening session at a Los Angeles clothing store is about as exciting as detailing the events of a family birthday party. While the music is playing, it's great to catch up with familiar faces over free drinks, but there's very little insight to offer those that didn't attend. Who wants to look at pictures of grandma opening her presents next to a cheese-grilling DJ Rhettmatic?
A bigger challenge arises when the unveiling of an anticipated record is the center of such events. The reason that 100 people gathered at La Brea clothing store And Still on a Friday night (March 5) (other than the free drinks) was the third collaborative LP from L.A. rapper Murs and North Carolina super-producer 9th Wonder, ForNever, coming out March 30 on SMC Recordings. Unfortunately, because everyone was busy chatting and drinking and the soundsystem was far from perfect, there wasn't too much listening at this listening session.
Plenty of people heard Murs' superhero combination of get-girls humor and sociopolitical proclamations, but it's not an amicable situation to truly digest new music. What comes through instead are brief flashes that turn into bookmarks for when ForNever leaks onto The Internets some time this month. There was the unnamed song with a hook about "cigarettes and liquor" that seemed to capture the best of Murs' FELT collaborations with Slug -- without actually featuring the Atmosphere front man -- by getting the party started and enjoying the shit out of his efforts. Or maybe it was an indictment of tobacco and alcohol companies... it was kind of hard to tell.
Then there was Murs and 9th's follow-up to Common's classic hip-hop-as-lady-friend metaphor, "I Used to Love H.E.R" -- featured in the video above. Murs doesn't so much as update the 1994 staple as he covers it, aided by a loop from 9th Wonder that might even out-jazz the original. That final flash from last night's listening session came from the ForNever lead single, "The Problem Is."
Featuring Sick Jacken and Uncle Chucc, "The Problem Is" succeeds with big epic strings and a heart-heavy hook. Murs spends his time addressing the world's problems mostly by attacking capitalism and the inevitable evils it carries. Psycho Realm's Sick Jacken then questions the balance between guns and education while "not preaching, [and] just giving you the real 24." It's a memorable track on an album that should shape up to be one of the year's best indie rap albums and you can download "The Problem Is" right there, should you want to listen. If you just want to hear it, however, you'll need to wait until the next party at a clothing store.
The cover of En’ A-Free-Ka, the solo album from Sa-Ra Creative Partners’ Shafiq Husayn, shows the producer and MC studiously perched on a slender, dark-green stool, clutching an ancient-looking brown spear. Around him, an eclectic selection of antiques and artifacts clutters the scene, while a hazy, late-afternoon beam of light defines him as the focal subject. He’s sitting inside Africa by the Yard, a store in L.A.’s Leimert Park district. It’s an artsy area, he explains, a former cultivating ground for the progressive-thinking early-’90s hip-hop movement Project Blowed, and home to Good Life Café, where artists like Freestyle Fellowship and Abstract Rude would congregate.
He found his calling in hip-hop after attending Uncle Jamm’s Army parties in the early ’80s. “Uncle Jamm’s Army was the West Coast Zulu Nation as far as throwing jams and playing that electro and funk music,” he explains in his low-register growl of a voice. “They started to rent out the L.A. Sports Arena, where the Clippers were playing at one point — that gives you an idea of how influential they were in L.A.
“I met Ice there,” he continues, casually referring to Ice-T, then a budding rapper hosting parties at clubs like Radiotron, where a prefame Madonna could also be found on the bill. “Ice would come to the jams they held at Crenshaw High School in 1984,” he recalls.
